[QUOTE=Omegaman]
It devolved into a melee which I too participated in , but was also participated in by certain mods. Know I know better than to tell you fellows how to do your jobs as that only leads to your insulting me at will and the closing of my threads. That is fine as it’s your board. I’m only a visitor here and although I pay for that right you have made my place here very clear. There are no hard feelings but…
[/quote]
Clearly there are, or you would have already let it go by now.
I am not a Mod, but this one seems to have an easy enough answer, so allow me. I would say that the Mods don’t come in to take action to stop all thread hijacks because it’s not a board rule. Specifically, there’s nothing so rigid in the board rules that says every post in a thread must be a direct response to something said by the OP.
Threads go off topic all the time. Sometimes they just venture briefly into mild sidetracks – side discussions that do not necessarily dominate the thread. Sometimes the whole thread’s topic evolves (or devolves, as the case may be) into something else – this would be more fitting for the term “hijack”.
How the moderators will respond to them really depends on the context and the forum. For example, total hijacks of threads are typically discouraged in GQ, although the occasional humorous sidetrack is not heavily frowned upon as long as the OP’s question is actually getting answered. In Great Debates, side discussions related to the original topic sometimes arise, although in GD I think they typically try to keep the debate more or less focused on the OP’s topic. Especially if the side discussion leads to animosity and poo flinging.
In MPSIMS, however – the whole forum is just about random thoughts, light discussion, miscellaneous topics. Hijacks happen plenty. No biggie. Here in the Pit, threads get hijacked into humor and silliness all the time – especially when the pitting is weak or the target of the OP’s ire is vague (as in the case of the “don’t feed the trolls” thread).
Some threads can get derailed into total chaos – usually known as a trainwreck. Although whether to consider a thread a trainwreck or not is a bit subjective – usually involves insults flying fast and free and people getting all bent out of shape, and a serious topic being totally derailed. And BTW, the thread you referred to (the troll thread) was nowhere near trainwreck status when you stepped into it. It was just a vague pitting that had taken a silliness sidetrack, which many Pit threads tend to do (although some were still discussing the OP’s topic).
But there’s no board-wide rule regarding topic hijacks. And especially if the OP of a thread is okay with a sidetrack that a thread takes, few others will mind. If Rilchiam (the OP of that thread) had responded “Hey guys, enough of the ladle jokes – I really want to talk about trolls and why you shouldn’t feed them”, then it’s more likely that a mod would have stepped in, or closed the thread if Rilchiam had requested its closing.
Despite the silly sidetrack, the thread was plugging along in a non-contentious manner. Until you entered it and made it all about you, and your previous closed thread complaint. This is part of why Giraffe called you an attention whore. The original thread wasn’t about you. Or at least, you were never named in the OP, and I don’t know who Rilchiam specifically intended, but my first thought upon reading the OP was the short-lived Trotsky, of several days back (and others like him).
You post a passive-aggressive jab like this, and then you wonder why Giraffe responds in a less-than-loving manner?
